LETTERS 



Flying Reindeer 



Piers Vitebsky ["A Winter 

 Hunt," 12/05-1/06] pro- 

 vides a solid grounding in 

 the history and ecology of 

 place, and transports the 

 reader through his descrip- 

 tions: the tinkling of frozen 

 tea crystals and someone 

 "crunching off" as they 

 walked away. The article al- 

 so emphasizes how the au- 

 thor and most readers truly 

 exist outside the reality of 

 the Eveny and other subsis- 

 tence-based peoples, when 

 he flies away to teach and 

 then easily flies back into 

 their world. My only cri- 

 tique is that he didn't bring 

 readers up to date with 

 how life has changed as a 

 result of the fall of the So- 

 viet Union and the increas- 

 ing effects of global climate 

 change on Arctic regions 

 and their inhabitants. 

 Susan A. Crate 

 George Mason University 

 Fairfax, Virginia 



I nodded solemnly at Piers 

 Vitebsky s line, that "do- 

 mesticated" reindeer are 

 "only weakly attached to 

 people." As a Scandinavian 

 descendant of those who 

 roamed Arctic Finland and 

 Sweden before 1900, I have 

 collected stories of horrific 

 accounts about reindeer. 

 Most often the experiences 

 were bone jarring (desper- 

 ately clinging to a sledge 

 that catapulted and tumbled 

 through the semidarkness 

 over treacherous tundra). 

 Even experienced drivers 

 were routinely bounced out 

 of the sled and seriously in- 

 jured or killed. Older chil- 

 dren placed on reindeer 

 commonly fell victim to a 

 runaway mount. If they 



were foolish enough to 

 hang on rather than fall 

 off, they were not likely to 

 be seen again. 

 Brenda Johnson Tzipori 

 Ventura, California 



Piers Vitebsky replies: 

 Susan Crate is right to call 

 attention to the fall of the 

 Soviet Union. My book 

 chronicles its impact on the 

 personal, political, and spir- 



itual lives of separate fami- 

 lies. Environmental degra- 

 dation is a concern, but the 

 Eveny are highly adaptive. 

 Sometimes they joke, "This 

 is our home. If the climate 

 gets hot, we'll just stay and 

 herd camels!" 



Brenda Johnson 

 Tzipori's hair-raising sto- 

 ries are precious family 

 heirlooms. As with car 

 travel, the occasional disas- 

 ter is much more memo- 

 rable than the everyday, 

 trouble-free journeys. 

 Domestication is seen as a 

 delicate social contract, and 

 herders take pride in keep- 

 ing reindeer cooperative 

 rather than recalcitrant. 



Symbiosis and Evolution 



The November 2005 issue 

 on evolution makes a con- 

 spicuous omission. None of 

 the articles mention sym- 

 biosis as a major driving 

 force of evolution, as artic- 

 ulated by Lynn Margulis's 

 serial endosymbiosis theory. 

 Margulis makes the com- 

 pelling argument that 

 wholesale combination of 

 previously separate, free-liv- 



f Exacts. \ 



ing genomes into a single 

 organism is perhaps the 

 most important mechanism 

 for creating new species. A 

 classic example is the preda- 

 tion and incomplete diges- 

 tion of one bacterium by 

 another, leading ultimately 

 to the nucleated cell. 

 Michael Duffin 

 Swanzey, New Hampshire 



In Real Time 



In his article "Evolution in 

 Action" [ 1 1 /05], Jonathan 

 Weiner does an excellent 

 job showing that evolu- 

 tionary change can be rapid 

 and can be studied as it oc- 

 curs. He does, however, re- 

 peat an incorrect conclu- 



sion when he states that the 

 story of the evolution of 

 color in the peppered moth 

 has "toppled over." 



Research has repeatedly 

 shown that natural selec- 

 tion acts on the color of 

 moths and that changes in 

 air quality lead to rapid 

 evolutionary change. What 

 is in doubt is the mecha- 

 nism whereby natural se- 

 lection occurs. Bernard 

 Kettlewell's initial hypoth- 

 esis was that selection fa- 

 vored moths that matched 

 their background. As Mr. 

 Weiner correctly notes, 

 subsequent study has failed 

 to support that mecha- 

 nism, and investigators are 

 now investigating other 

 hypotheses. 

 Jonathan Losos 

 Washington University 

 Saint Louis, Missouri 



Jonathan Weiner 

 replies: Jonathan Losos is 

 correct: the case of the pep- 

 pered moth does remain a 

 dramatic example of evolu- 

 tion in action. The moth 

 has evolved before our eyes, 

 and natural selection has 

 driven its evolution. 



The story of the moth 

 should be taught in class- 

 rooms as a case study of 

 both evolution in action, 

 and also of science in ac- 

 tion. When hard new data 

 force scientists to question 

 the details of a favorite old 

 hypothesis, they do it — 

 even if it hurts. 



Flexibility Is Enough 



One of the examples cited 

 as a classic case of rapid 

 evolution, in the chart on 

 page 50 of Jonathan 

 Werner's article, warrants 

 clarification. Our research 



10 



NATURAL HISTORY March 2006 



